Category Archives: Far right racists

Violence erupts at EDL demo in Nottingham

Posted on by Bob Pitt

English Defence League protestViolent clashes have erupted between police and members of the English Defence League (EDL) during a city centre protest.

Some 500 demonstrators from the EDL, many of whom had been drinking all morning, marched through Nottingham shouting: “We want our country back.”

The hundreds of officers, many of whom had been drafted in by Nottinghamshire Police, surrounded the rally. Officers mounted on horses were forced to keep back some of the demonstrators with batons while some constables had dogs to try and contain the violence.

Many of the demonstrators had their faces covered with hooded tops and scarves and shouted: “Allah, Allah, who the f*** is Allah?”

Other protesters had Union Jacks and St George’s flags which they either waved or wrapped around their shoulders as a police officer barked instructions at the crowd from a helicopter circling overhead. Some of the group waved placards which read: “Protect Women, No To Sharia” and “No Surrender”.

Press Association, 5 December 2009

See also BBC News and Indymedia.

Lincoln EDL ‘are not racist’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lincoln EDLFootball hooligans, or so-called “casuals”, from Lincoln are descending on Nottingham this Saturday, December 5th, for the English Defence League (EDL) demonstration, according to the EDL Lincoln Division Facebook page.

According to the group: “[The EDL] are not racist, but we want Islamic extremists off our streets!” However, one of the group’s administrators has written on the wall saying: “Let’s be out in force and do Lincoln and England proud, and show these Muslim scum we shall never surrender! For Queen and country.”

The same person has posted a link to a petition which advocates the banning of Islam.

Another member of the group made racist comments underneath a photo of some Asian men, saying: “Some nice people get let into the country… can’t believe the immigration system… all they do anyway is sell drugs and rape white women.”

A picture of a flag bearing the name of Lincoln’s gang of football hooligans, the “Lincoln Transit Elite”, has been uploaded to the page. Another picture of a flag uploaded includes a tribute to fascist organisations such as the BNP, National Front, and Combat 18. More pictures depicting football hooliganism, alongside pro-Loyalist images, have also been uploaded.

The Linc, 4 December 2009

CST warns Jewish community against joining SIOE Harrow protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SIOE logoThe Community Security Trust has urged the Jewish community not to lend their support to the group “Stop the Islamisation of Europe”.

SIOE have been canvassing support from British Jews to attend their forthcoming demonstration at Harrow mosque. Emails have been circulated by SIOE, including one sent to the Jewish Chronicle, asking for support. SIOE have urged Jews to bring Israeli flags to the demonstration on December 13, and have said their aim is to recruit 1,000 Jews to join the protest.

A statement on their website declares: “If you do not attend this demonstration then you are prepared to see Israel wiped off the map. Vile antisemitism is being preached in mosques across the world and almost certainly the one in your neighbourhood.”

The CST has drawn attention to the Islamaphobic comments on SIOE’s website, and compared the group to the English Defence League, and the BNP’s Nick Griffin, who have attempted to gain support from Jews through pro-Israel and anti-Muslim statements.

The blog singled out an central image on the SIOE’s website, which shows a skull with blood dripping from its mouth on the front of a mosque, where the minaret and crescent moon and star symbol is also covered in blood.

On its blog, the CST says: “This image tells us everything we need to know about SIOE and Islamophobia. If a Jew cannot understand why the image is racist, or hateful, or bigoted then they should try imagining it as a synagogue: with blood dripping from a Star of David; with blood dripping down the rabbi’s pulpit; and with blood dripping from the mouth of a skull that wears an Israeli army helmet.”

Jewish Chronicle, 30 November 2009

See “Don’t be fooled by Islamophobia” on the CST blog.

See also ENGAGE, who comment: “The CST’s commendable advice is strongly welcomed for its denying the SIOE an opportunity to drive a wedge between faith communities in Britain and engage in cheap politicking. As we’ve noted before, in the battle against far right racist groups, Muslims and Jews should be natural allies.”

Lega Nord calls for Italian referendum on minaret ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Roberto_CalderoliItaly could be the next European country  to consider a referendum on the building of Islamic minarets following the Swiss vote to ban the structures.

Cabinet minister Roberto Calderoli, of the xenophobic Northern League, said Italy should confirm its Roman Catholic roots and hold a vote as soon as possible.

Like the Swiss, Italian voters can have a direct say on an issue if a minimum number of signatures are gathered calling for a referendum. The League is expected to now start the process for a referendum, despite the Vatican expressing unease over the Swiss vote.

Calderoli said the Swiss decision was a triumphant “yes to bell towers and no to minarets” that served as an important example for other European countries losing touch with their Christian identities. Others within the anti-immigration Northern League have called for a cross to be inserted on the Italian national flag to symbolise the deep Christian roots of the country.

The Northern League have frequently made headlines for their views on Islam and immigration, most notably during the Danish cartoon row in 2006, when Mr Calederoli wore a T-shirt emblazoned with one of the anti-Islamic images.

They have also allowed pigs to graze over sites where mosques were earmarked in order to make them unholy, while recently, the Northern League was accused of racism after it emerged that a local scheme to rid a town of illegal immigrants had been nicknamed “White Christmas“.

Daily Mail, 1 December 2009

See also “Swiss minaret ban spills over Europe”, Islam Online, 30 November 2009

And Radio Free Europe reports: “Danish People’s Party head Pia Kjaersgaard welcomed the Swiss ban and said her party would also seek a similar vote. Martin Henriksen, a deputy for the Danish People’s Party, acknowledged that Denmark currently had no mosques with minarets. But he told RFE/RL that Muslim immigrants have to adapt to Danish society, not the other way around. ‘There are plans in Copenhagen and other Danish cities to build grand mosques, and we oppose it in every way possible. And this could be another way to oppose it’.”

Tariq Ramadan analyses the Swiss referendum

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SVP anti-minaret poster“Over the last two decades Islam has become connected to so many controversial debates – violence, extremism, freedom of speech, gender discrimination, forced marriage, to name a few – it is difficult for ordinary citizens to embrace this new Muslim presence as a positive factor. There is a great deal of fear and a palpable mistrust. Who are they? What do they want? And the questions are charged with further suspicion as the idea of Islam being an expansionist religion is intoned. Do these people want to Islamise our country?

“The campaign against the minarets was fuelled by just these anxieties and allegations. Voters were drawn to the cause by a manipulative appeal to popular fears and emotions. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonised Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values. (The UDC has in the past demanded my citizenship be revoked because I was defending Islamic values too openly.) Its media strategy was simple but effective. Provoke controversy wherever it can be inflamed. Spread a sense of victimhood among the Swiss people: we are under siege, the Muslims are silently colonising us and we are losing our very roots and culture. This strategy worked. The Swiss majority are sending a clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you and the best Muslim for us is the Muslim we cannot see.

“Who is to be blamed? I have been repeating for years to Muslim people that they have to be positively visible, active and proactive within their respective western societies. In Switzerland, over the past few months, Muslims have striven to remain hidden in order to avoid a clash. It would have been more useful to create new alliances with all these Swiss organisations and political parties that were clearly against the initiative. Swiss Muslims have their share of responsibility but one must add that the political parties, in Europe as in Switzerland have become cowed, and shy from any courageous policies towards religious and cultural pluralism. It is as if the populists set the tone and the rest follow. They fail to assert that Islam is by now a Swiss and a European religion and that Muslim citizens are largely ‘integrated’. That we face common challenges, such as unemployment, poverty and violence – challenges we must face together. We cannot blame the populists alone – it is a wider failure, a lack of courage, a terrible and narrow-minded lack of trust in their new Muslim citizens.”

Guardian, 30 November 2009

Vote to ban minarets wasn’t necessarily Islamophobic (it says here)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SVP anti-minaret posterJoan Smith offers her profound thoughts on the result of the Swiss referendum:

“I don’t doubt that some people voted for the ban for racist reasons, but damning them all as ‘Islamophobes’ is an attempt to suppress entirely reasonable arguments about the role of religion in secular modern societies. Tariq Ramadan doesn’t use the word in his polemic but he does claim without qualification that ‘voters were drawn to the cause by a manipulative appeal to popular fears and emotions’.

“Corralling a wide range of people, many of whom disagree profoundly with each other, under one great Islamophobic umbrella is a familiar tactic but it’s not conducive to civilised discussion. If the debate about the powers demanded and enjoyed by religion – all of them, not just Islam – pops up in distorted forms in European countries, it is as much the responsibility of religious apologists such as Ramadan as it is the racist right….

“Any notion of universal human rights recognises the right of individuals to practise their religion, but that isn’t incompatible with believing that religion is divisive and seeks to exercise unelected power…. If you take that position, it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that public displays of religious symbols should be kept to a minimum, whether they take the form of crucifixes or hijabs. As Ian Traynor reports in today’s Guardian, the proposed ban on minarets in Switzerland received ‘substantial support on the left and among secularists worried about the status of women in Islamic cultures’.”

Comment is Free, 30 November 2009

Cf. Sholto Byrne’s comments on his New Statesman God Blog. He too notes left-wing and secularist support for the minaret ban, and observes that “it is part of the paradox of Western liberalism that its pluralism only extends so far, and that it is essentially intolerant of anything that does not stem from its own ‘definitive’ culture”.

Feminist support for Swiss minaret ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SVP campaigns for ban on minaretsA right-wing campaign to outlaw minarets on mosques in a referendum being held in Switzerland today has received an unlikely boost from radical feminists arguing that the tower-like structures are “male power symbols” and reminders of Islam’s oppression of women.

A “stop the minarets” campaign has provoked ferment in the land of Heidi, where women are more likely than men to vote for the ban after warnings from prominent feminists that Islam threatens their rights.

Forget about tranquil Alpine scenery and cowbells: one of the most startling features of the referendum campaign has been a poster showing a menacing woman in a burqa beside minarets rising from the Swiss flag. It seems to have struck a nerve in Langenthal, a small town near Bern where Muslims plan to put up a minaret next to their prayer room in a bleak former paint factory.

“If we give them a minaret, they’ll have us all wearing burqas,” said Julia Werner, a local housewife. “Before you know it, we’ll have sharia law and women being stoned to death in our streets. We won’t be Swiss any more.”

A spoof video game on the internet called Minaret Attack shows minarets popping up all over the idyllic Swiss countryside, after which a message proclaims: “Game over! Switzerland is covered in minarets. Vote to ban them on November 29.”

Socialist politicians have been furious to see icons of the left joining what is regarded as an anti-immigrant campaign by the populist Swiss People’s party, the biggest group in parliament. One of them, Julia Onken, warned that failure to ban minarets would be “a signal of the state’s acceptance of the oppression of women”. She has sent out 4,000 emails attacking Muslims who condone forced marriage, honour killings and beating women.

Sunday Times, 29 November 2009

Swiss voters back ban on minarets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SVP racist posterSwiss voters defied their Government and churches today and approved a ban on building minarets — reflecting an alarming hostility to a rising Muslim minority.

Fifty-seven per cent of voters in a referendum supported the direct democracy initiative, which ensured international embarrassment for Switzerland and a backlash in the Muslim world, upon which the country depends for exports.

A big majority of the 27 cantons supported the right-wing inspired move, with opposition strongest in the German-speaking part of the country, according to initial results. In Geneva, home to United Nations agencies, the voters rejected the initiative by nearly 60 per cent. Turnout was 53 per cent, a relatively low figure by the standards of Swiss democracy. Opponents of the measure saw this as a reflection of apathy among many voters who would not have approved of the ban.

The referendum was initiated by the nationalist Swiss People’s Party (SVP), the largest group in the federal Parliament, after residents opposed the construction of a minaret in Langenthal, north of Berne.

The “yes” is the latest act by European voters in support of anti-immigrant parties after electoral successes over the past decade by far-right groups in Austria, the Netherlands and France. A jubilant SVP insisted that the vote had nothing to do with intolerance, only with the imposition of Islamic politics and culture.

Ulrich Schlüer, an SVP parliamentarian who drafted the initiative, told The Times that he had been certain of victory because the Swiss had had enough of the Muslim community. “We are still at the beginning of the process. We compare our situation to Germany, France or England – the problems they have in their suburbs,” he said. “That is what we do not want here.”

Times, 29 November 2009

Meanwhile, the fascist BNP applauds Swiss voters for having taken “a daring and dramatic stand against the Islamic colonisation of their country”.

BNP incites hatred over St Albans mosque plan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Vicious leaflets aimed at keeping a mosque out of London Colney have been referred to the police’s harm reduction unit.

Police are now examining the British National Party (BNP) leaflets headed up “Do you want to live under an oppressive Islamic Sharia government?” as a possible incitement to racial hatred. The leaflets were delivered to homes in London Colney claiming a planning application to turn Cemex House in Barnet Road into a mosque ousewas part of a wider plot to turn St Albans into an Islamic city.

The man behind the leaflets is Danny Seabrook, 36, a divorced self-employed builder who lives in London Colney. He stood as a county council candidate for the BNP recently in Watford. He denies incitement to racial hatred saying the leaflets are “factual and to the point”. He went on: “A mosque would be out of keeping in the village. St Albans is a Christian city. You give an inch and they take a mile. They’ll have minarets up there next.”

Some of the propagandist language used in the leaflet includes accusations that politicians pander to Islamists’ every demand and the majority of residents want to keep the area as it is now.

County Cllr for London Colney, Chris Brazier, said: “This is detestable and I don’t think there would have been this reaction if the plan was to turn it into a Christian church. The BNP do seem to be targeting London Colney since they picked up 200 votes in the recent county council elections.”

Cllr Brazier conceded that he had received almost 100 letters from residents opposing the plans on legitimate planning grounds including traffic fears, narrowness of the access road, insufficient parking and noise. He maintained there was no suggestion of racism in any of the moderately-worded letters.

He said the application had aroused fears that such a large mosque would attract significant numbers of visitors from outside the area, raising traffic and parking issues for residents.

But Peter Trevelyan, acting for the London Colney Islamic Group which has submitted the application, said: “Having been frustrated in its search for suitable premises, the local community currently uses the parish meeting room on White Horse Lane once a week for Friday prayers. The main hall is small and inconvenient in shape and, with 50 people present, is cramped and over-crowded.”

He said prayers would take place five times a day but the principal focus for prayer would be at 1pm on Fridays when attendance varied between 40 and 50 men and a handful of women. The majority would walk to the site from homes and employment nearby.

But council officers have recommended to a planning meeting on Monday that the scheme should be approved because there would be adequate off street parking and no acceptable harm to highway safety or the free and safe flow of traffic.

Herts Advertiser, 28 November 2009

Via Lancaster Unity